Help with caftans please

Circa Vintage Clothing

Circa Vintage Clothing

Alumni
Hi all,
I have some garments that I'd really appreciate some help with - folkwear is not my strong point and these have come with zero information. Hopefully someone here will recognise the style or country of origin or embroidery technique? It's lovely embroidery, appears to be hand-done. I wonder if they're for men, and they both have similar gathered necklines.

All help gratefully received.

Number 1 is a white cotton caftan with black embroidery and a mystery hand-written tag I can't decipher
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Number two is a similar material with blue and gold embroidery, including on the skirt.
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I think they're Romanian, maybe 1970s at a guess but obviously traditional in design. I think they're called 'ie' in Romania but don't quote me - I only know a little as I had some unusual early ones, and dealt with a lovely collector who told me an awful lot of fascinating stuff at the time!

The label is for Camasa or 'shirt' according to google translate which makes sense, and IRRCS is (or was) Institutul Român pentru Relaţii Culturale cu Străinătatea (which I think is roughly the 'Romanian Institute for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries') so assume these would be from an exhibit or talk about Romanian Culture? I can't make out the last part but I'm sure someone else may be able to step in and translate :)
 
I have no clue about these, but that embroidery is just exquisite!

This Wikipedia entry is about the cultural institution that followed the IRRCS, but has some info on that too - it's in Romanian, I just ran that first paragrah on the history through Deepl to understand it better... https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutul_Cultural_Român. So the former institution was in existence from 1962 til 1990.
 
Midge said:
I have no clue about these, but that embroidery is just exquisite!

This Wikipedia entry is about the cultural institution that followed the IRRCS, but has some info on that too - it's in Romanian, I just ran that first paragrah on the history through Deepl to understand it better... https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutul_Cultural_Român. So the former institution was in existence from 1962 til 1990.
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Thanks Karin, that's really helpful too. I have no idea how to date these items, they have some age but not a lot if you know what I mean.

Thanks for your comment Mary: the embroidery is wonderful! I particularly like the blackwork.
 
An update as I thought you might like to know a little more about these: Hatty is right, they're called 'ie' because they have gathered necklines. So despite the label, these are not Cămașă, which are straight blouses, but that term seems to mean 'shirt' so maybe it still applies. I trust the IRRCS a lot more than my googling.

These traditional blouses date back to 5,500 BC and originated in Moldova. They were stitched in bright colours for young women and darker colours for older or married women. The colours and stitches are deeply symbolic, specific to region and include many floral motifs and usually crosses for faith. The shoulders are the key area, because it's the most visible - and is divided into three parts. The shoulder is called the altiță and refers to the sky, and is unique to the garment. The încreț is a narrow, ornamental band (faggotting in at least one of these garments) and the rest of the sleeve is called the râuri, or 'rivers', featuring vertical or diagonal stitching representing the earth.

If I spent some time researching the particular stitches on these garments I could probably tell a lot more about them, although they may have been made for the tourist market so not as personal.

They were worn by peasants until the mid 19th century, when Queen Mary (or Maria) brought them into fashion. Our 20th century embroidered peasant blouses of the '30s and '60s-70s are of course, modern descendants.

Some can be found in museums like the Met and they were also painted by Matisse. Credit: Henri Matisse, La Blouse Roumaine (1940) / Peasant blouse (1936) / La Hongroise a la blouse verte (1939). Source and more information here.iematisse.jpg

And now they're world heritage listed! Included on the UNESCO World Intangible Heritage list for Romania. Great video here about their heritage and how they're made and what they mean to their communities.
 
Not the same country, but not dissimilar... I was trawling a celebrity magazine website last night, looking for something and came across this image of Queen Letizia of Spain wearing a traditional Ukrainian blouse last year (we all know the reason for that) - which looks no less exquisite, and I think it looks great the way she chose to style it: https://www.vogue.com/article/queen-letizia-ukrainian-traditional-blouse-vyshyvanka
 
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